Are Movies True to the Live Gaming Range?

Hollywood loves gambling. Give a film a casino, a card table and someone with a serious look on their face and you’ve got half the ingredients for a movie already.

The problem is that films don’t always show what gaming is really like. Casino gives us the money, the glamour, the arguments and the general mayhem. Bond films usually take things even further, with casinos becoming playgrounds for international spies.

But there are a few films that get closer to the reality of gambling and the different types of games people actually play.

21

21 is probably one of the better-known modern gambling films. It tells the story of a group of MIT students recruited to use card-counting techniques at blackjack, one of the most popular casino games for this particular technique, in Las Vegas.

Naturally, the film makes it all look rather exciting. There are trips to Vegas, big casino floors and plenty of money flying around.

It’s still Hollywood, though, so everything is turned up a notch. The basic idea of blackjack and card counting is real enough, but the film turns it into something much more dramatic than most people’s experience of sitting at a blackjack table.

Still, it gives viewers a decent look at the game itself and the atmosphere around a casino.

Molly’s Game

Molly’s Game takes a different route, skipping the casino floor and heading into a world of wealth, privilege, and manipulation. It’s about Molly Bloom, who ran extremely high-stakes private poker games involving wealthy and famous players.

That makes it interesting because poker has always had a slightly different place in popular culture. It’s a casino game in some settings, but it can also be played privately, competitively and socially.

The film shows the characters, personalities and money involved rather than simply making everything about winning a huge hand.

And that’s probably closer to how many serious poker games actually feel.

Owning Mahowny

Then there’s Owning Mahowny, most likely the least glamorous gambling film in this list.

This is a true life story of a man who is a compulsive gambler. In contrast to the usual portrayal of glamorous casino high life, spiced up with witty one-liners, this movie deals with the ugly aspects of gambling. It is a hard movie to watch because of its serious subject matter and the brutal way it exposes the dark side of the tables, but that’s precisely why it stands out from other movies of the same genre.

Casino

And then you’ve got Casino.

It’s difficult to leave that one out. It’s not exactly a quiet and realistic look at somebody enjoying a few hands of blackjack, it’s a Martin Scorsese film about Las Vegas, organised crime, money and power.

So, yes, it exaggerates plenty.

And while we don’t see much actual gambling, the casino itself is central to the story, and it gives you a real sense of the scale of the gaming industry and the sheer amount of activity going on behind those flashing lights.

So are movies true to live gaming? Sometimes.

The Bond films are fantasy. Casino is heightened drama. But 21, Molly’s Game and Owning Mahowny all show different sides of gaming that feel considerably closer to real life.